Cat Got Your Tongue
by BlackInkedPen
Summary: Post-SCIV ending of Yun Seong. As they were headed back home, two desires were revealed. Featuring: Talim, Yun Seong and Seung Mina. One shot.


_A/N: This is post-SCIV ending of Yun Seong. As they were headed back to their homes..._

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Calibur or its characters. This is a fanfiction.  
><strong>_

"So what's the name of the next town we are heading?" Seung Mina asked the busy young priestess, Talim, whose face was buried on a map half her size. Talim slid her finger across the map and traced the miniature of a pathway towards a landmark in the map.

"It says here: Lan... zhou," the smaller girl with an ornamental hat and a loose hair tied near its end replied to the braided taller girl, pronouncing the name gingerly and slowly. "I guess that's its name. Why do they have difficult to pronounce names in this country?"

Seung Mina laughed, "You also said that when you read the map of our country?"

Talim broke into giggles with her and sighed. "I still can't get used to the names of each country I travelled through even after months being away from home."

The birds that perched on the trees that stood in attention on both sides of the trail chirped gaily around them. The sun obliquely shone their rays by the slits that the leaves left as gaps in their shades. The wind blew cool gusts on them. It was a good spring time mid-afternoon for them to travel across this forest and they had no worries on reaching the next town before the sun set that day. The two female warriors trudged ahead aware suddenly that their male companion had been quiet the whole time and was lagging behind them.

"Yun is very quiet lately. Did something happen?"

"I don't know. Is he sick?"

"He's always sick in his mind."

"No, I meant real sickness."

"I know," said Seung Mina in giggles. "Wait. I'll go and check." She turned and saw a very distracted Yun Seung, eyes shifting from the trees beyond to the sky upward and the ground below. His dyed red hair remained upright and spiky inspite of the wind that threatened their collapse.

"Seemed like the only thing right about him right now is his hair," the taller girl remarked causing Talim to nudge her on the arm.

"Why don't you go talk to him?" said Seung Mina, noticing the concern of the shorter girl regarding the person behind them.

"I... I can't," Talim replied seemingly confused, shaking her head. "He's been acting strange and quiet when he's around me. I can't speak to him without him staring too much at me or else averting his eyes from me."

"Hmm. Nothing similar to any fever I've seen before. He does look very sick," the taller girl mused, hiding a broad smile from her companion. She left the young priestess, who proceeded onwards, and slowed down to head to Yun Seong.

-0-

The journey to obtain the Sword of Salvation had been a failure. That was because the rumors about it were just as they were—plain rumors. Yun Seong had come close to it and thought had held it, only that when he supposed he had it in his hand, it was the neck of Seung Mina he was grasping and strangulating. During his confusion and panic because he believed he had killed her, Talim came and comforted him and destroyed Soul Edge. It was then that Seung Mina woke up and it was learned that she was playing dead to exaggerate the gravity of the result of his obsession for Soul Edge. With a few laughs and an awkward moment afterwards, he learned a lot because of those events. He went home with them, older and more mature.

He had gotten used to pursuing his goal; it gave him life and purpose. During his quest, he felt like the strands of silk, woven together to make something useful. He was not some nobody that he was before, scattered and confused and with no real identity. He was somebody with a path to pursue.

In this path, he made friends… and he met her.

Now, all was coming to an end. He would come back to his country with nothing to bring home. He was going back to the life of a nobody searching for an identity. Worst of all, he would never see her again. It was more agonizing that it overshadowed the uncertainties he would face at home. It felt like a gnawing inside—a hunger which food could not satisfy.

He stared at the trees that stood gloomily around him and the bright sky, too bright for his eyes, adding to the emptiness within him. Lost in his thoughts, he was surprised when he looked forward and there was Mina in front, staring intently at him.

"What?" he queried. A palm was slapped into his forehead, lingering in there as Mina raised her eyebrows.

"Nope. No fever at all. Sick in his mind as usual."

She stared at him waiting for a reaction… any reaction.

"You're not going to say anything?"

"Which would be…?"

A puzzled Mina replied, "We're almost there. An hour more and we would reach the village which has all the buns you crave."

"…"

"More food that you can imagine!" she said enticingly and over cheerfully.

"I'm not hungry."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "You _are_ sick! More sick than I thought you were. As your physician, I prescribe you to sit over there by that log."

She pointed towards a small area outside the canopy of the trees where the land jutted out the cliff near them. On that spot, one could see acres of hilly land mass, majestic and surreal, carpeted by trees very thick. Adjacent to them and beyond the land mass, the snowy white proud peak of another mountain rose covered by thick clouds.

Yun Seong headed there obediently and for a moment, forgot his woes as he drank the sight. It was breathtaking. He wished that he could live a life as beautiful as this grandiose sight. The cool gusts of the mountainous air blew at him and brought refreshment to his thirsty soul as he sat on the log near the edge of the cliff.

Suddenly, he became aware of another's presence behind him. He turned and saw Talim, standing timidly at the entrance of the forest, the wind also blowing through her skin, her clothes and her hair which flapped gracefully like a female dancer, calling to him enticingly. She was as breathtaking as the scenery in front of him.

He sat there, half turned towards her, heart frozen as was his body, mouth agape, overwhelmed by her sight.

"Um," she started weakly and shyly. "Can… Can I sit with you?"

Speechless for a moment, jaw loose and throat dry, he nervously motioned her to a space on the log where she could sit, too. "Y-yes. Go ahead."

She took her seat and the two endured a moment of awkward silence. Her nearness with him was both pleasurable and painful. It stung him that this instance, as dream-like as it appeared to be was just as it was—a dream. A few moments later, she would be gone to return to her own country while he and Mina would head north to their own country. When he awoke the next day, all these bliss that he experienced around her, the delight when he saw her small lips turned upward in a smile, the exhilaration he felt when he accidentally touched his skin to hers—all these would soon be part of a painful past; it tore him into pieces. How he wished that there was something—anything—that he could do to prolong this pleasant dream. How he hated to wake up to reality. If only he could say anything to her.

But he didn't know what to say other than say what he felt. This he didn't know how to tell her either.

"Um…" Talim broke the silence. "This would be our last day together. Mine with you and Mina."

"…Uh, yes."

"You've been very good to me. I wanted to tell you that personally before I leave you. You've done so much for me."

"It was no problem. It was… It was because…" he said uncertainly and quietly, the succeeding words refusing to come out of his lips.

"I won't forget you," she whispered. Her fingers brushed lightly the backside of his hand pressed on the log, electrifying him; increasing his want for her as she stroked back and forth with her fingertips. He wanted to hide his face so that she won't see the turmoil in his eyes. He was grateful that she couldn't because her face was turned down.

Suddenly, a surge of strength compelled him to speak.

"Talim…"

Her head lifted up. He was surprised because on her eyes and on her cheeks were tears. From then on, he realized that she was trembling. He wanted to grab her shoulders and embrace her, shielding her from the cold of the mountain and all the coldness inside her. He wanted to be her blanket and cloak to warm her.

"Talim…" was all he could utter as his hand took hold of her arm.

"Yun," she said, voice shaking like her trembling body. "I don't want to leave. I don't want to return to my country."

"Then, come with us," he was surprised as the words exited his mouth. As they did so, it hardened his resolve. He wanted nothing more than to have her by his side forever. He wanted to see her smile everyday, feel her body daily and have her presence from day to day. He won't be satisfied than for this dream to become reality. He was determined to make it so.

"Come with us, please," he repeated once more.

"I can't!" she said as she broke into more tears and her voice broke. "I have a duty for my people. I can't abandon them for they are what I am and this is what I'm destined to be."

Like a mirror thrown into the ground, he felt his hopes shattered. He felt no despair greater than this. He wanted her more than anything else in the world but her duties were above him and, knowing her, he could never sway her when she had decided.

"I wanted nothing more than to see you everyday," she whispered as she sobbed.

Suddenly, like a light shining and piercing through dark rain clouds, he felt hope rising within him. There _was _something he could do. With renewed strength, he grabbed her shoulders and embraced her with all the desire he had for her. Momentarily, her sobbing stopped and wide-eyed, she found herself blanketed by his warmth.

"You will, Talim. You will," he said with absolutely no doubt.

-0-

From behind, hiding by the trees, Seung Mina chuckled as she shook her head slowly.

"You've grown so much, Hong Yun Seong. All it took was some pushing."

-0-

_Fine_

-0-

_Please read and review. I kept on using "-0-" because I don't know how to make those line breaks. Please teach me. 0_o. _


End file.
